By Jiaheng (2023-24 cohort)
As the guitar instrumentals of Coldplay’s “Adventure of a Lifetime” reverberated in the empty hostel lobby, I hastily strapped on my 50 liter backpack and scurried to the train station.
It was 4:30 am in Stockholm – the partygoers of the night have retreated into their shoebox apartments, the everyday salarymen still deep in slumber in their warm beds, and the sun has barely peaked through the horizon. The city’s dynamic buzz has grinded to a halt. The only audible sound was the rhythmic thud of my footsteps against the cobblestones of historic Gamla Stan (below).
It was my last day in Stockholm, the last day of my 3 week trip through Europe, and the last day of my gap year. Amidst a flurry of email exchanges in preparation for move-in day, an indubitable fact is clear – Duke beckons my arrival on its campus, and the time has come to leave behind the semi-nomadic lifestyle.
My mind was awash with a cacophony of thoughts and emotions. What a crazy 6 months it has been. I embarked on this trip with a simple goal of seeing the world, but this journey has brought so much joy and growth in ways I’ve never imagined.
From having absolutely no experience solo traveling, to independently planning itineraries on Google Maps, budgeting funds, cooking meals, doing laundry, making friends, and managing everything in between, it is difficult to encapsulate the essence of this growth with a single sentence (or blog post) — so much has transpired within a few months I can’t wrap my head around it.
As I piece together excerpts from the Notes App on my iPhone (spontaneous thoughts/reflections I have jotted down along my journey), I shall attempt to piece together the past 6 months into cogent rhetoric.
12 June 2024. 11:31 pm. Shanghai. — Our inner voice is often clouded or dictated by external things – an upcoming exam, words someone said, actions someone took. An amalgamation of thoughts that are merely a response to external threats, rather than an authentic voice coming from within. As I traversed the great seas and mountains of our beautiful world, I have unknowingly broken free of the physical tether between me and these external contrivances. I cannot be located immediately, nor an urgent response demanded from. It feels odd to be disconnected from the only world I know – “What if someone is looking for me?”, “What if I miss out on a shared experience back home?” The FOMO is real, but perhaps learning to unshackle myself from this feeling is best for the long run.
16 July 2024. 4:51 pm. Vienna — As I ease into this lifestyle, one thing becomes apparent. Life slows down. Life moves on – with or without you in it. The realization of how minuscule we are in the grand scheme of things has been liberating. Our generation places an overwhelming amount of pressure on ourselves: to deliver and excel in our professional domains, while also actively participating in every single social endeavor. To be constantly plugged into the buzz of the world is exhausting, and we don’t realize how exhausting it is till we take the option to step away.
6 August 2024. 11:04 am. San Francisco — Damn, I am really going to miss this. I guess the reality set in the moment I boarded this flight headed to the United States. This life felt like a dream, but I know it was real.
A common theme across my little iPhone Notes rambles was the idea of ‘liberation’. I’m always slightly amused whenever someone asks me, “What is the purpose of backpacking?”, because I always respond with “there is no purpose to it” (much to their chagrin). The truth is: there is no singular purpose to backpacking, just like there’s no singular purpose to life. Things simultaneously matter and do not matter. They matter only to the extent that you want them to, but stop mattering the moment you let it up.
Backpacking removes the guardrails that have shaped and streamlined our choices as ‘excellent sheep’. I decide what I want to do, how I want to get there, and how much time and energy I want to dedicate to a particular activity. There is no checklist or tourism police that condemns me for my choices — such as skipping the ABBA Museum in Stockholm. (Confession: I didn’t know who ABBA was until I reached Stockholm, but now I listen to it 3 times a week at ECON101 lectures.) At the end of the day, your thoughts and reflections from your experiences are entirely yours, and the only person you have to be accountable to is yourself.
The past 6 months have taught me what it means to live authentically. To unshackle myself from external pressure and devote my energy towards the things that mattered most to me. To feel emotions more passionately – laughed so hard my belly ached, hollered so loud my throat hurt. Because I understood that this version of me will only exist in this moment, and will cease to exist when the next moment arrives.
The beauty of life is that we are all in a process of becoming — continuously discovering ourselves and embracing the richness of diversity and difference. I will forever hold this beautiful chapter of life close to my heart, but I’m equally eager to embrace the adventures of the next 4 years at Duke.
